


This Place Will Burn You Up

by mytimehaspassed



Category: The Shadow Line
Genre: M/M, Murder, Organized Crime, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-17
Updated: 2011-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:16:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jay’s first kill is quiet and clean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Place Will Burn You Up

**THIS PLACE WILL BURN YOU UP**  
THE SHADOW LINE  
Jay/ ~~Rentboy Assassin~~ Ratallack  
 **WARNINGS** : spoilers for the series; mention of murder

  
Jay’s first kill is quiet and clean. His uncle smiles like he’s proud, and Jay is seventeen and it’s a long time coming, and maybe he resents that his father didn’t lead him into this life, but he has no regrets now, with his gloved hands and the man that he strings up like a Christmas tree on Tower Bridge because guns are messy and loud and he’s so much better when he can touch and taste and feel.

Harvey hums and grips Jay’s shoulder and he tells him that he’ll fit in just fine and it’s only both of them there in the chill of the evening, with frostbitten mouths and the taste of sweat in the air, and the dead man swings once, twice, with the wind, and then stills.

Jay laughs, and Harvey looks at him for a moment, and then smiles, uncertain.

***

It has nothing to do with family, staying with the money and the drugs, taking everybody else out of the equation.

It has nothing to do with family. It’s just business.

***

Jay meets him in a club, and there’s little else but skin between them, and he tells Jay his name, and Jay laughs and he asks if he’s being put on, but the boy smiles with all his teeth, his voice quiet in Jay’s ear.

Jay says, “I know of a whore with that name,” and the boy’s eyes narrow, his mouth whisper close, his hand resting on Jay’s arm, soft, warm. Jay takes a couple swallows of his pint and he lifts the boy’s hand off his arm and holds it for a moment, hovering just above his belt buckle.

Jay says, “How much rent does he charge these days?” and the boy’s smile is like swallowing glass, and Jay knows that he’s perfect.

***

They don’t meet often, but when they do, Jay marks him with nails and teeth and tongue and negotiates deals with the slow glide of his fingers down the small of his back. Jay brings money and drugs and Ratallack slips off his jeans and lights a cigarette and they don’t talk for a while. Jay had once asked if this is how all the other blokes do it, his mouth poised above Ratallack’s belly button, his mouth open and wide, and Ratallack had laughed and made a curve of his lips to blow smoke into Jay’s face and told him that no, this, this right here, this is just them.

Jay had meant to ask how the other men liked it, the ones that were old and fat and white like Bob Harris, the ones who took what they could pay for, the ones like Jay, but Ratallack had bit his lip then, when Jay had touched him with his tongue, bit his lip and stilled beneath him, the cigarette in his hand burning all the way down to the filter.

***

Jay kills and fucks and collects money, paying his debts with the blood he was given, and he plays the game the way his uncle never played it, away from his heart. He knows nothing more about the men he uses but what he wants to know, strengths and weaknesses, and the way they hold guns close their to chests. He knows Gatehouse and he knows Ratallack and he knows that’s enough to keep him going for years.

And it’s like this: Gatehouse points and Jay shoots, and he goes to Ratallack with blood underneath his fingernails and gun powder on his palms and he smokes and drinks and they touch and they talk softly, twisting the crisp white hotel sheets around and around the bed.

Jay mouths the place where Ratallack’s cross clings to his skin, and he asks him why he wears it. Ratallack laughs and it’s not light, and both of them are caught in this place where they don’t know what it means when they answer each other’s questions, what it means to look at each other and just know, what it means when they touch like this and it’s more than just business.

Ratallack says, “It was a gift,” and he leaves it at that, and Jay doesn’t press him, mostly because he doesn’t care as much he thinks he should.

And when he breaks the chain with his teeth, he doesn’t apologize.

***

And it’s like this:

Jay had called him after they found Harvey’s body in the car, bleeding from his broken teeth, the driver gone. Ratallack had answered his mobile and Jay hadn’t said anything for one, long moment, because he knew it was silly and mad and nothing like how he was supposed to be (hard and cold and unattached, nothing like his uncle, nothing like his father, more than the men they strived to be, more than the men they got killed for) and Ratallack had sighed and given him the address of a chip shop, and Jay had went and ate like a normal person and Ratallack had kept stealing the chips from his plate and eating them in slow, infuriating ways and nothing had seemed like it was in its place.

Jay remembers throwing the rest of the chips in a bin and taking Ratallack around the back and fucking him up against the cold stones of the shop, his teeth biting shapes into Ratallack’s neck, his hand pulling Ratallack’s hair so hard, he had ginger tufts sticking to his sweaty fist when he finally pulled away.

Ratallack had smiled when he pulled up his trousers, that smile that he gave Jay the day they had met, and Jay knew that neither of them would ever forget how close this was to becoming something real, how close this was to becoming something they had no control over, something they had never wanted.

And Jay had punched him then, and when Ratallack opened his mouth, he had had blood on his teeth.

***

In the end, Jay doesn’t retire in twenty years.

It was wishful thinking, anyway. 


End file.
